This goes well beyond media bias.  This is simply knee deep in the Obamaliar’s tank, even more egregious than Dan Rather’s forged memo thingy in 2004.  Basically, McCain has enlisted the service of decorated war hero and fellow POW Col. Bud Day to head a Truth Squad.  Yeah, that Bud Day.  Day’s first task should be to clue CNN on this minor little detail:

Despite CNN’s claims (and headline) to the contrary, Day was never a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.  Ever.

As usual, the blogosphere is doing the job that the MSM used to do, which is “research” (feel free to Google that term, CNN).  Since the blogosphere broke the story, CNN has closed comments on its hit piece.  I’m sure that’s just a massive coinkidink, though.

Chris Matthews gets a “thrill” in his leg and Tucker Carlson notes how the MSM’s collective woodies are at full mast when it comes to Obama.  CNN has apparently joined in the orgy.  From Michelle Malkin:

You know, when I read about this CNN video via Allahpundit yesterday, I threw up a little in my mouth. The clip of female journalists on a plane moaning as they watch Barack Obama talking on a cell phone was actually filed under “breaking news video” on the CNN website with the caption, “Obama in jeans: Sen. Barack Obama surprises the press corps by wearing jeans.”

Now, the video’s on YouTube. And it really should have a content warning advising viewers to watch it only on a completely empty stomach. Several members of the press corps yell at an agent to “sit down” because she’s obstructing their view. They giggle and sigh “You’re killing us” as he straddles across a row of seats and they furiously click away on their cameras.

Kneepads, ladies?

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Many of you may have heard about Obama’s moonbat pastor imploring his congregation to sing “God d–n America” in lieu of “God Bless America”, as well as accusing America of creating AIDS to kill black people (I thought we created it to kill gays?  Dang it, keeping up with moonbat talking points is hard!) and deserving 9/11.

Well, it appears as though Anderson Cooper of CNN wishes you fine folks would stop focusing on this pastor, who just so happened to serve (until a little while ago) as an official campaign ”spiritual adviser” to Barry O.  No “guilt by association”, please!

Unless you’re Mitt Romney, in which case the fact that you go to a Mormon church certainly lands you under Coop’s microscope.  That’s different.

I mean, in Mitt’s case, you happen to associate with a religion that a lot of folks think say crazy things, so that obviously reflects on you.  Whereas in Obama’s case, you happen to associate with (nay, employ) a religious figure that a lot of folks think say crazy things, so that obviously doesn’t reflect on you.  Got that?

Nope…no liberal media bias!

The Clinton News Network…or the Castro News Network?  From Cuban blogger Babalu Blog:

Michael Graham, blogging at The Natural Truth, brings us this disgusting but not surprising story about how CNN coached its anchors to treat the subject of fidel castro in an early morning email today.

I can now confirm independently that not only did such an email go out, here it is in its entirety:

From: Flexner, Allison
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2008 7:46 AM
To: *CNN Superdesk (TBS)
Cc: Neill, Morgan; Darlington, Shasta
Subject: Castro guidance

Some points on Castro – for adding to our anchor reads/reporting:

* Please say in our reporting that Castro stepped down in a letter he wrote to Granma (the communist party daily), as opposed to in a letter attributed to Fidel Castro. We have no reason to doubt he wrote his resignation letter, he has penned numerous articles over the past year and a half.  (No need to question, huh?  So much for that journalistic instinct! - Ed.)

* Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba – namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.  (Free “education”?  Don’t you mean “propaganda centers”? - Ed.)

* Also the Cuban government blames a lot of Cuba’s economic problems on the US embargo, and while that has caused some difficulties, (far less so than the collapse of the Soviet Union) the bulk of Cuba’s economic problems are due to Cuba’s failed economic polices. Some analysts would say the US embargo was a benefit to Castro politically – something to blame problems on, by what the Cubans call “the imperialist,” meddling in their affairs.

* While despised by some, he is seen as a revolutionary hero, especially with leftist in Latin America, for standing up to the United States.

Any questions, please call the international desk.

Allison

The sender of this email is Allison Flexner whose current position at CNN is unknown. She was a producer and has been in Cuba according to this transcript from 2000.

Smoking gun evidence about how the mainstream media and particularly CNN, which we have always referred to as the castro news network, is trying to sanitize castro’s legacy, EVEN NOW!

As if health care and education were a good enough excuse to violate human rights. We have to be fair now don’t we?

As if the regime needed any more help in getting its talking points into the MSM, they now come through official emails to journalists and anchors. We’ve often lamented the Faustian bargain that foreign news agencies have made with the castro regime in order to maintain access. When Reuters has a reporter in it’s Cuba bureau that penned 1,000 articles for the official newspaper of Communist Party U.S.A. nothing should surprise us. But it does. 

Nope…no liberal media bias!

Personal responsibility has never been a priority for the left, and the Clinton News Network illustrates it thusly:

CNN’s January 30 “American Morning” mentioned retailers were cutting prices to get customers to purchase more, but no one during the broadcast had a problem with one unemployed woman buying one of those fancy televisions.


“Veronica McNeil has two kids,” said Cho. “She recently lost her job. Her husband’s an ironworker and the family is feeling the pinch.”


McNeil revealed that a good discount would be her weakness.


“If I’m here to buy baby stuff and I see a TV at a good sale price, I’ll grab it,” McNeil said.


Cho pointed toward “rising gas and home heating oil prices and Americans losing their homes” for money being “tight.” Personal responsibility and wise financial decisions were lost on Cho.

Sometimes, words are unnecessary to point out the lunacy of the left.

Trust me, my friends…this CNN-plant debacle isn’t going away any time soon.  From Instapundit:

But we learn that CNN did use Google:

He said CNN never spoke to Kerr and had Google, which owns YouTube, bring the retired general and about a dozen other questioners to the debate because their videos were likely to be used, although no final decision had been made.

Using Google for plane tickets is okay. But next time, try using them for… Googling. As a commenter at Kurtz’s observes: “What should be noted about this issue is that CNN probably has a whole army of interns and low-level producers who could vet the possible questioners. They ‘could spend hours Googling everybody’, while the top level hacks concentrated on choosing the ‘best’ questions.” 

Six known plants, and CNN couldn’t bring themselves to Google a single one of them in their “vetting” process?

Howard Kurtz has a funny take:

So let me get this straight… in the Democrat YouTube debates, the “undecided questioners” are Democratic activists and in the Republican YouTube debates, the “undecided questioners” are Democratic activists.

Well, at least they’re consistent.

Aren’t they, though?  LOL!

UPDATES AT THE END THIS POST.

Shrill-ary, Shrill-ary, positions contrary, how does your garden grow?

Not only has Her Highness had a problem by planting questions at her own debates, but now she’s resorted to using plants at the other party’s debates.  From Townhall:

It turns out that Keith Kerr, retired Colonel., U.S. Army; retired Brigadier General, California National Reserve, who submitted a YouTube question about gays in the military, is actually a member of Hillary Clinton’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual Americans For Hillary Steering Committee.  He’s also part of a film production crew trying overturn the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

CNN’s retort?

In the final seconds of the post-debate coverage, Anderson Cooper acknowledges that CNN messed this up and states that CNN did not know that Kerr has a position within the Clinton campaign and that had they known, they would have disclosed the association. 

Uh-huh.  Just an honest mistake, I’m sure.  It’s not like CNN has been embarassed before for not “weeding” before debates.  Oh, wait…yes, they have.

CNN’s “vetting” process allowed many more “undecided” questioners in.  By “undecided”, I mean “people who are already campaigning for Obama or Edwards”…you know, that kind of “undecided”?  Nope…no liberal media bias!

UPDATE (11/30/2007 - 07:39 a.m. EST): This thing keeps getting progressively (pun intended) screwier and humiliating for CNN.  We’re now seeing that a CNN producer last week swore that the GOP debate would have leftist plants weeded out, and that he wanted the debate to be a debate of the GOP party…which, as Allah puts it, would “explain the six different Democrat questioners”, right?  Yep…two more Democrat plants!

As if that weren’t bad enough, CNN then admits that they never should have used General Limpwrist’s question (on account of him working with the Shrillary campaign).  But if they really felt that way, why then did they get defensive thusly?

“It’s interesting to see our critics really focusing on the questioners, but not really focusing on the questions. You haven’t heard them say that these were not useful questions.”

Dude, make up your freakin’ mind, already!  If the questions are legit and the questioners irrelevant, why say that you never should have used General Cornholer’s question?

As to the question of “Does it matter who asks the questions, if the questions are legit?”,  Allah puts it best:

As I said, it matters when they’re affiliated with a campaign and the affiliation isn’t disclosed because then you’re left to wonder (a) if they were there secretly at the campaign’s behest to try to force an issue into the other party’s nominating process for political advantage, and (b) what CNN’s motive might be in not vetting and disclosing the affiliation. All they had to do with Kerr was mention he was with the Clinton campaign. 

But why would they want to do that?  That would require journalistic competence and integrity, both of which are sorely lacking at CNN.  No wonder Fox News continues to kick their pinko #sses.

UPDATE (11/29/2007 - 01:35 p.m. EST): Byron York makes an excellent point here.  Remember when the Dems refused to debate on Fox News due to charges of bias?  If anyone should have boycotted a network’s moderation of a debate due to bias, it should have been the GOP boycotting the Clinton News Network…

Democrats would not even appear for a debate on Fox News, where they would have been questioned by experienced and respected journalists like Brit Hume and Chris Wallace.  But Republicans went ahead with the CNN/YouTube show, where they were questioned by…well, some questionable characters.

As Ace quips:

It made for sharp questioning and good drama. But if that’s the name of the game, let me suggest to CNN that they allow a paralyzed veteran with limbs missing due to an IED attack similarly grill the Democratic candidates on whether they support the Democratic Congress’ determination to choke off all monies needed for the military’s anti-IED program. Give him the mic, live, and let him harangue the Democrats on the viciousness of IEDs, and the viciousness of them putting soldiers’ lives, and limbs, in jeopardy to appease their netroots base.

UPDATE (11/29/2007 - 12:30 p.m. EST): How about this?  This queer general (Kerr) that CNN supposedly didn’t know was part of the Hillary camp was flown to the debates, put up in a hotel room, and given free transportation to and fro…by CNN!

According to General Limpwrist, Kerr told FOX News that CNN “never asked” him if he is a Clinton supporter so he “never told.”  I thought dude was against “don’t ask, don’t tell”?

I agree with MSNBC host Joe Scarborough: CNN’s contention that they “didn’t know” about Kerr (or any of the other plants) is “total crap”!

Wolf was instructed to wear kid gloves during the Dem debate in Vegas, and like a good lap dog for the Clinton News Network, he did just that.

CNN debate moderator Wolf Blitzer did an ‘outstanding’ job in Vegas, a senior adviser to the Hillary campaign said early Friday. ‘He was outstanding, and did not gang up like Russert did in Philadelphia. He avoided the personal attacks, remained professional and ran the best debate so far. Voters were the big winners last night.’

A rival campaign insider charges: ‘Wolf turned into a lamb. No follow-up question on Clinton’s huge flip on drivers licenses?’ 

Nope…no liberal media bias!

See the video and judge for yourself. Notes Breitbart TV:

Filmmaker Michael Moore went off on CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer during an interview Monday to promote his latest documentary ‘Sicko’. Moore blasted the anchor and the network for not doing enough to stop the Iraq war and for doing a ‘crap’ report on his new film. Moore also mocked the pronunciation of chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. (Not the type of thing that the eagle-eyed filmmaker would miss if it came out of the mouth of one his political enemies.)

I’m looking forward to seeing how the moonbatosphere spins this.

I hate to do this, but I must give CNN props for doing this to the “most ethical Congress in history” (via Newsbusters):

ANDERSON COOPER: Drew, it’s just amazing that nothing has changed. What happened to all those promises about transparency, about having this whole process be open? I can’t believe you had all those interns calling for days and some 330 lawmakers said they just wouldn’t even give out the information.

GRIFFIN: Anderson it’s mind-boggling. One congressional aide even sent us an e-mail saying, listen, my congressman is an advocate of the open process and at the same time said we’re not going to release our earmark requests.

It’s just been an eye-opening experience, but quite frankly the more we’re doing this, the more we’re keeping them honest and other groups are, the more open they are grudgingly becoming so tonight we have posted at cnn.com the results of our surveys. We’re going to show you who did send us the earmarks and their earmark requests, who said no, who wouldn’t respond and even, Anderson, who was rude to those poor little interns when they called asking what Congress wants to do with our money.

COOPER: The fact that people would be rude, that is really annoying, you know. This is — this is, A, what journalists are supposed to be doing but it’s also what citizens should be able to do, you know, to the people who represent them.

GRIFFIN: Clearly it’s annoying to them. They don’t like to be called on the carpet, especially, I mean, I hate to get political here, but have you to. The Democrats promised in December open, transparent process. Now they are being called to come up with that open, transparent process and it’s been difficult because for so many years and decades, quite frankly, business as usual has been slipped in those earmark requests and we’ll continue to pay for them.

I’m sure CNN will do something to tick me off in the next day or two, but I have to give credit where it is due.